AdultBook's bloghttp://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=blog/35
enUgly Love by Colleen Hooverhttp://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/4613
<p><img alt="" height="275" src="/files/ugly%20love.jpg" style="margin: 8px; float: left;" width="176" />This is another emotion-filled read from Colleen Hoover. I have read all of Hoover&#39;s books and find that she has a way of making each story feel unique. Hoover started out as a Young Adult author with her breakout <strong><em>Slammed</em></strong>, published independently. Her last few titles have crossed into the New Adult genre - angst filled love stories about complicated twenty-somethings with varying emotional and physical scars.</p>
<!--break--><!--break--><p>For the most part, romances all follow the same formula and many authors fall into a trap of just rehashing the same story with different names and places. Not so with Ms. Hoover who has a knack for making the reader feel the characters&#39; emotions and conflicts build through plot scenarios that always feel credible and original.&nbsp; There is some despicable behavior in this book which chronicles a type of dysfunctional friends-with-benefits-situation. You might hate Miles and you might say Tate is weak but the sheer fact that you do is the beauty of the story. It is hard to be indifferent about Hoover&#39;s characters. Miles&#39; story flips between the past and present, revealing a little bit with each chapter as to why he behaves the way he does. Our girl Tate&#39;s willingness to be treated shabbily by Miles has to be tempered by the fact that she agreed to this flawed arrangement. Neither one had any concept of how this was going to play out and it was &quot;ugly&quot;. Relationships often are.</p>
<p>The current Romance genre has been dominated by Erotica titles such as those from E.L. James, Sylvia Day and Maya Banks. While Hoover&#39;s content is graphic at times, it&#39;s no more so than one might find in a typical bodice ripper.&nbsp; If you like an edgier romance and/or enjoy young adult fiction, this is a good crossover and a wonderful example of the new niche that is now referred to as New Adult.&nbsp; Also highly recommended is her<strong><em> Slammed</em></strong> series (<strong><em>Point of Retreat</em></strong> and <strong><em>This Girl</em></strong>) which is a very clean read that packs a a hefty emotional punch as well.</p>
http://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/4613#commentsWed, 10 Dec 2014 00:41:46 +0000AdultBook4613 at http://www.westlakelibrary.orgThe Good Girl by Mary Kubicahttp://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/4608
<p><img alt="" src="/files/good%20girl%20cover.jpg" style="margin: 8px; float: left; width: 83px; height: 126px;" />Good read about a kidnapping with a twist.&nbsp; I found it similar to <strong>Still Missing </strong>by Chevy Stevens and even <strong>The Husband&#39;s Secret</strong> by Liane Moriarty.&nbsp; I listened to the audio and thought it was very well done with multiple voice actors.&nbsp;</p>
<!--break--><!--break--><p>The plot works its way backwards, flipping between Before and After sequences, with a retelling of the events from the kidnapper, the victim&#39;s mother and the detective working the case. There is a splattering of romance and the characters are well developed.&nbsp; I thought the final statement mildly anticlimactic only because the reader is privy to the thoughts which precede the spoken conversation. What struck me most was how much our interactions with others are dominated by the situation we find ourselves in; how a relationship may have been altered under different circumstances. There is also an underlying theme of privilege and money and how the perfect family is not always that.&nbsp; Would recommend to anyone who enjoys the mild suspense of guessing how a story will unfold. This is Kubica&#39;s first novel.</p>
http://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/4608#commentsSat, 06 Dec 2014 17:53:58 +0000AdultBook4608 at http://www.westlakelibrary.orgThree Cheers for Laurie R. King!http://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/645
<p><img src="images/King_Touchstone.gif" align="right" />Touchstone<br />
by Laurie R. King<br />
A great stand alone title from the author of the Mary Russell mysteries, this novel is set in post World War I England. It follows the efforts of an American agent hunting down a terrorist who has ties to bombings in the United States. In order to get close to his suspect, Harris Stuyvesant befriends a wounded British soldier who left the war with incredible extrasensory abilities after nearly getting killed in the trenches. A cat and mouse game ensues as both men skirt the aristocracy, radicals, and British Intelligence. Wonderfully written, with keen suspense.</p>
http://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/645#commentsThu, 22 May 2008 19:52:17 +0000AdultBook645 at http://www.westlakelibrary.orgSummer Dramahttp://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/644
<p><img src="images/Shreve_BodySurfing.gif" align="right" />Body Surfing<br />
by Anita Shreve<br />
Sydney takes a summer job with a wealthy New Hampshire family tutoring their young daughter Julie while they vacation at their beach cottage. During her stay, Sidney finds herself enmeshed in family jealousies and secrets eventually reawakening rivalries between two older brothers who visit the cottage periodically. She tries to sort out her place in the family while at the same time coming to terms with two short-lived marriages of her own. This latest novel by Shreve has plenty of drama and emotion throughout! </p>
http://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/644#commentsThu, 22 May 2008 19:35:10 +0000AdultBook644 at http://www.westlakelibrary.orgWhere Are You Now?http://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/643
<p><img src="images/Clark_YouNow.gif" align="right" />Carolyn MacKenzie was 16 years old when her older brother Charles, known as Mack, disappeared just before his college graduation. A decade later, dissatisfied with the police&rsquo;s efforts to find Mack, Carolyn decides to undertake her own investigation. Clinging to the belief that Mack is alive, based on his annual calls to their mother on Mother&rsquo;s Day, Carolyn begins to interview anyone she can find who had a connection with her brother. The more she learns, the more questions arise, and the more she unknowingly jeopardizes her own safety. <u>Where Are You Now?</u>, Mary Higgins Clark&rsquo;s twenty-seventh suspense novel, incorporates all the elements Higgins Clark fans have come to expect: numerous characters who are rarely whom they appear to be, fast-paced chapters with cliffhanger endings, and plot twists that&rsquo;ll keep the reader guessing.</p>
http://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/643#commentsThu, 22 May 2008 16:46:37 +0000AdultBook643 at http://www.westlakelibrary.orgSunshine on a Rainy Morninghttp://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/638
<p><img src="images/Pappalardo_SunflowersSecret.gif" align="right" />History shows that Hitler made a mistake invading Russia in World War II. What many people do not know is that the need for an alternative source of cooking oil for Germany and the Soviet sunflower fields were a contributing factor to his decision. In his book <u>Sunflowers (the Secret History)</u>, Joe Pappalardo relates the unexpected history of this flower from caves in the Stone Age to the gardens of kings. Flower lovers, scientists, and trivia buffs will find this book entertaining reading as they learn of sunflowers influence on our lives.</p>
http://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/638#commentsFri, 16 May 2008 14:22:15 +0000AdultBook638 at http://www.westlakelibrary.orgDesperate Housewiveshttp://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/634
<p><img align="right" src="images/Wolitzer_TenYear.jpg" alt="" />What do you do with yourself when you&rsquo;ve elected to step off a promising career path to raise a family and then find that 10 years have passed and your kids no longer need you like they once did? Meg Wolitzer examines this question through the lives of four women in her latest novel, <b><u>The Ten-Year Nap</u></b>. Long-time friends Amy, Jill, Roberta, and Karen struggle to find meaning and purpose in their lives as they experience marital ennui, their husbands' professional successes, their pre-teen children's move toward independence, and their friendship tested when Amy befriends a woman she and her three friends have always simultaneously mocked and admired. Well written, poignant, and often unnervingly realistic, <u><b>The Ten-Year Nap</b></u> explores the roles of contemporary women as daughters, mothers, and wives.</p>
http://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/634#commentsThu, 15 May 2008 00:38:07 +0000AdultBook634 at http://www.westlakelibrary.orgSeeking a Cure for the Living Dead in 1970s L.A.http://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/618
<p><img align="right" alt="" src="images/Matheson_IAmLegend.gif" /><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><strong> I am Legend</strong> <em>by</em> Richard Matheson</font></p>
<p><font size="2" face="Tahoma">Robert Neville is the last man in Los Angeles California. By day he roams the city gathering food and supplies to prepare himself for night, when vampires surround and attack his home.</font></p>
<p><font size="2" face="Tahoma">A few years before, a germ had spread, turning everyone into the living dead: Neville had to bury his wife, twice. Nightly, Neville's old neighboor and carpool buddy, now walking dead, taunts him to come outside. </font></p>
<p><font size="2" face="Tahoma">Written in the 1950s, and set in the 1970s, this novel is said to have launched the genre of post-apocalyptic fiction, and clearly influenced movie classics like &quot;The Night of the Living Dead.&quot; It is also an intelligent, taut, creepy novel, that fully explores Neville's psychological highs and lows as he faces the end of human civilization.</font></p>
http://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/618#commentsFri, 02 May 2008 14:40:49 +0000AdultBook618 at http://www.westlakelibrary.orgCertain Girlshttp://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/617
<p><img src="images/Weiner_CertainGirls.gif" align="right" />Jennifer Weiner's debut novel <u>Good in Bed</u> featured heroine Cannie Shapiro, a plus-sized newspaper journalist turned single mother turned wildly successful novelist. In <u>Certain Girls</u>, Weiner's latest release and the sequel to <u>Good in Bed</u>, thirteen years have passed, and Cannie is now married to a bariatric physician, the author (under a pseudonym) of a successful science fiction series, and the mother of a teenager. When Cannie's daughter Joy discovers and reads her mother's novel, a thinly disguised fictional account of Cannie's life, Joy suddenly begins to question everything that she has held true and dear regarding herself and her family. Her search for the truth leads her on a journey of self-discovery and reveals what it means to love and to be a family.</p>
http://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/617#commentsThu, 01 May 2008 00:45:49 +0000AdultBook617 at http://www.westlakelibrary.orgTwilight Childrenhttp://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/612
<p><img align="right" src="images/Hayden_TwilightChildren.jpg" alt="" /><font size="2">A four-year-old boy who had never spoken, a seven-year-old girl severely troubled after years of various abuses, an 82-year-old woman who stopped speaking after suffering a stroke: All were in danger of becoming casualties of an overburdened mental health care system until one woman entered their lives and brought to them the compassion, hope, dignity, and understanding they so desperately needed. </font></p>
<p>Torey Hayden, educational psychologist and former special education teacher, chronicles her work with these three memorable individuals in <u>Twilight Children: Three Voices No One Heard Until A Therapist Listened</u>. Hayden has written 10 other books, eight of which, including <u>Ghost Girl</u> and <u>Beautiful Child</u>, recount her experiences with children with special needs.</p>
http://www.westlakelibrary.org/?q=node/612#commentsFri, 25 Apr 2008 00:04:48 +0000AdultBook612 at http://www.westlakelibrary.org